The Never Have I Ever Club

by Mary Jayne Baker

  He pulled up the chair next to hers and kissed her on the cheek.

  ‘Hello, darling. How’s it going?’

  She frowned at him. ‘Ash. What the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m here to join you, of course. Sorry, I’m not early, am I?’

  For a moment, he thought she wasn’t going to play ball. Then he saw a tiny smile flicker on her lips. Given how pissed off she’d been with him the last time they’d spoken, that meant it must really be one horrific date.

  ‘You are a little early,’ she said. ‘I haven’t told Eddie the plan yet.’

  ‘I’m sorry, how rude of me. I must have got my times muddled.’

  Eddie was casting puzzled looks between the two of them.

  ‘Am I missing something? Robyn, who’s this?’

  ‘Sorry. Ash Barnes.’ Ash stretched a hand across the table. ‘I’m her husband.’

  Eddie gave the hand a dazed sort of wiggle. ‘Eddie Stephens. Sorry, did you say you’re her…’

  ‘Oh, there’s no need to worry,’ Ash said, putting an arm around Robyn. ‘My wife and I have a special understanding. Don’t we, darling?’

  Robyn nodded. ‘Very special.’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Eddie said.

  ‘It’s my fault,’ Robyn said. ‘I meant to explain earlier, but, er, we were having such a nice time chatting that I didn’t like to interrupt.’

  ‘Explain what?’

  ‘About the threesome.’ She smiled sweetly. ‘You are up for it, aren’t you? You did invite me back to your place. I couldn’t go without Ash: not after promising to love, honour and obey.’

  ‘Sorry – threesome?’

  ‘It’s more Ash’s thing than mine, but obviously we’d do our best to give you equal attention. I mean, that’d be the least we could do, with you offering to host.’

  ‘Do you two do this a lot then?’

  ‘When we can get the partners,’ Ash said. ‘So will this be your first time?’

  ‘Er, yes. I mean, no.’ Eddie cast a nervous glance over Ash’s broad frame. ‘Look, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick here, mate. I didn’t realise your missus was… recruiting.’

  ‘Oh,’ Ash said, blinking. ‘You don’t want to then? That’s disappointing. Rob showed me your photo and I must say, I was really looking forward to it.’

  ‘He brought supplies and everything,’ Robyn said, pointing to Ash’s sports holdall.

  Ash reached over the table to rest a hand on Eddie’s shoulder. ‘I’d be ever so gentle.’

  ‘Um, what kind of supplies… you know what, never mind.’ Eddie stood up. ‘Look, Robyn, this really isn’t my thing. I’m just going to go home. I didn’t fancy you that much anyway.’

  Robyn sighed. ‘Another one bites the dust.’ She gave Ash’s leg an affectionate pat. ‘Never mind, honey, there’s always Grindr.’

  Ash grabbed Eddie’s arm as he passed him. ‘You might want to settle the bill on your way out,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Unless you want me to make an issue of that crack about my missus’ weight earlier.’

  ‘Right. Yes, fine, no problem.’

  When he’d gone, Ash grinned at Robyn.

  ‘I actually thought he might go for it for a minute,’ he said.

  ‘It’s bound to happen one day. We should probably think about retiring that trick while the going’s good.’

  ‘That was how I convinced you to go out with me. You remember that gym meathead I rescued you from?’

  ‘I remember.’ She finished her cocktail. ‘Anyway, don’t think this means you’re forgiven.’

  ‘I must’ve earned myself a conversation though.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Come on, Rob. I just saved you from a fate worse than Eddie.’

  She let herself smile. ‘He was bloody awful. I mean, he’d have to be if even you don’t look bad by comparison.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He stood up. ‘Let me get you another drink.’

  ‘All right, just one. Whatever the least sickly thing on the menu is, please.’

  Ash returned five minutes later with a couple of pints.

  ‘This is a very special cocktail,’ he said. ‘You just mix beer with beer and you end up with this delicious stuff called beer. Except in here, where they probably call it a Take Me Roughly From Behind or something.’

  ‘Seriously, they’ve got lager? Then why the hell have I been drinking these dirty cocktails all night?’

  ‘Because your date was too busy snickering at the drink names to ask if they did anything else, probably.’ He took his seat again. ‘Come on then, tell me all about Audi Eddie. How bad was he?’

  She took a reviving gulp of beer. ‘Date from hell. Propositioned me almost as soon as I got here, insulted me, talked about nothing but himself, used “creative” as a noun, manspread so much he was practically playing footsie with my crotch… oh, and the bloke could bullshit for England.’

  ‘Example?’

  She snorted. ‘He told me he was the baby off Nirvana’s Nevermind.’

  ‘Ha! Oh, I like that.’ He dipped his head to meet her eyes. ‘So can we talk now? About us?’

  ‘There’s no us, Ash.’

  ‘But there used to be. I never did get to properly apologise, did I?’

  She sighed. ‘All right, since you just did me a huge favour. Knock yourself out.’

  ‘Okay, here goes.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Robyn Bloom, breaking up with you was the stupidest, most imbecilic thing I ever did in my life, despite some stiff competition. I hurt you and I alienated you, and I regret it every single fucking day of my so far pretty worthless life. I won’t make excuses because I know none of them are good enough. I’ll just say I’m sorry and that even though what I did was totally unforgivable, I hope eventually you might… um, forgive it.’

  She shrugged. ‘All right, that was a good apology. I was expecting you to apologise for the other stuff though. You know, getting pissed at the seaside and pretending to be Will to get me to talk to you?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Well, yeah, I’m sorry for those things too.’

  ‘You know, Ash, it’s not even the fact you dumped me with no warning and jetted off to the other side of the world. I know you had some head stuff going on, and yeah, I kind of get that after the health scare thing.’ She glared into her beer. ‘It’s Melinda.’

  ‘That was a mistake.’

  ‘Telling me you needed space to get your head together, that it was all just too intense for you – God, I almost believed you as well. Then the next thing I know, you’re head over heels in love with someone else. Do you know how humiliating it was for me? All those sickly Instagram photos, #InLove, #YoungAsYouFeel, #MeAndMyGirl et cetera? And there was pathetic dumped Robyn sitting at home sobbing into her hashtags, trying to get over you while knowing you’d not given her a second thought when you’d found instant happiness with a newer model.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his cheeks burning with shame. ‘I… it was all part of the same thing. Struggling to deal with getting older. Thinking about Mum.’

  ‘It was cruel, Ash. You flaunted your new girlfriend in places you knew I’d see her, barely a month after we’d broken up. You might’ve been many things in the years I’ve known you – selfish, irresponsible, a general pain in my arse – but I never thought you had it in you to be deliberately hurtful.’

  ‘I never even considered it,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘I wasn’t trying to be callous, Rob. I was just… thoughtless.’

  ‘It amounts to the same thing,’ Robyn said, taking a sip of her pint. ‘And not just flaunting her to me, but to all our mutual friends. I felt utterly humiliated.’

  ‘We had some happy times though. You must think about those sometimes.’

  ‘They just make me sad now. Remembering the good times makes me think of how it all ended.’

  ‘Please don’t say that,’ he said, reaching for her hand.

  She pulled it away. ‘You wanted to talk, Ash. Well, this
is how I feel. If you find it unpalatable, that’s your problem, not mine.’

  ‘I ended it with Melinda because of you, you know. When I woke up to what a huge mistake I’d made breaking up with you.’

  ‘That doesn’t change what happened.’

  ‘I know, and don’t I bloody wish I could change it?’ he muttered. ‘But I can’t, so I’ll just have to try to make it up to you.’

  ‘I don’t see how you can, do you?’

  Ash was silent, staring into his pint.

  ‘What if I let you get some of your own back?’ he said at last.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I’ve got humiliating stuff I could tell you about me. If it’ll even the score a bit.’

  She half smiled. ‘Such as?’

  ‘Well…’ He thought for a moment. ‘Such as my mum walking in on me losing my virginity.’

  ‘Ouch. Seriously?’

  ‘Yeah. I’d invited Louisa Cockburn over for a GCSE revision date. Mum came in to bring us a cup of tea right after I’d, er… made first contact, so to speak.’

  Robyn shook her head. ‘Good, but not good enough.’

  He winced. ‘Right, this one’s really bad. I… okay, so I once went to a Jonas Brothers concert.’

  She laughed. ‘What, on purpose?’

  ‘It was a date. Some girl I met through my first junior designer job. She was a fan and I was…’ He shrugged. ‘Well if you really want to know, I was trying to get laid.’

  ‘Did it work?’

  ‘No. It turned out she was one of these dead religious types who didn’t go in for sex before marriage. Wouldn’t sully the purity of her flesh for anyone but a husband or a Jonas. I wish she’d told me that before I sat through three sodding hours of the guys.’

  ‘That is seriously humiliating.’

  ‘I know. And you can tell whoever you want, Rob, if it’ll make you smile at me again.’

  She shook her head. ‘Nowhere near the same level as what you put me through. But I will be telling lots of people.’

  ‘All right. Here’s something recent.’ He pressed his eyes shut. ‘I got an erection at the massage night.’

  ‘Oh my God! You never.’

  ‘Honestly. I had to tie Will’s jumper round my waist while I sneaked off to hide in the Gents.’

  ‘So that’s why you were scuttling.’

  ‘Yep.’ He looked up to smile at her. ‘Come on. Admitting to getting a boner in front of a roomful of pensioners has to count for something.’

  ‘It’s certainly humiliating.’ She sighed. ‘Not humiliating enough to make me forget what you did though.’

  ‘I miss you like crazy, Rob. Surely I don’t deserve to be punished forever. Can’t we just be friends again?’

  ‘Not now. It’s too painful.’ She pushed away her beer and stood up. ‘I’m going to get off. Thanks again for saving me.’

  ‘Robyn, I’m sorry,’ he said, putting a hand on her arm. ‘Genuinely, every day. I wake up sorry and I go to bed sorry. I’m in a permanent, lifelong state of fucking sorrow.’

  ‘Being sorry doesn’t fix things, Ash.’

  ‘I just want a chance to make it up to you. Please.’

  ‘I don’t think there is a way to make something like that up.’ She turned to go, then stopped and turned back again. ‘Hey. Did you really threaten to punch Noah Shepherd for me on his stag do?’

  ‘Oh. Yeah.’

  ‘Why?’

  Ash shrugged. ‘I just didn’t like him talking about you that way. Disrespecting you.’

  She looked at him for a moment, then turned and left the bar.

  *

  When Ash got home, Will was on the sofa reading his Spanish for Dummies book.

  ‘Good meeting?’ he asked. ‘I hope the unfamiliar sensation of actually doing some work didn’t have too much of a detrimental effect on your health.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Ash hummed to himself as he hung up his coat. ‘It was a pretty productive day all round.’

  ‘You’re very late, Ash. I thought you were coming to training. The boys were all asking for you.’

  ‘I know, sorry. The meeting overran, then I kind of got waylaid.’

  Will looked at him as he took a seat. ‘You seem very happy about it.’

  ‘I ran into Robyn. She was on some awful date out in town.’

  ‘Oh God.’ Will groaned. ‘You didn’t do Threesome Husband?’

  ‘Yep,’ Ash said, leaning back and putting his hands behind his head. ‘Worked like a charm.’

  ‘So you’re friends again?’

  ‘Well, no, not friends,’ he admitted. ‘But I did make a breakthrough. We talked over some issues, and I think I know what I need to do next.’

  ‘Yeah? What?’

  ‘Well, she said the biggest problem wasn’t the way we broke up. It was how humiliated she felt when I was with Melinda, seeing all my Instagram posts and that.’

  ‘Hardly surprising. So?’

  ‘I told her I wanted to make it up to her and she said there was no way I could. But I did think of something that might help.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘She feels humiliated, right? So I thought, what if I put myself through the ultimate humiliation for her sake?’

  ‘What, you’re going on Britain’s Got Talent?’

  ‘Even more humiliating than that.’ He screwed his eyes closed. ‘I’m going to let those pensioners draw me in the buff.’

  26

  ‘Oh, honey, I’m sorry,’ Freya said when Robyn answered the door to her and Eliot the night of their next club meeting. She pulled her friend into a hug.

  ‘I should jolly well think so, you total knob,’ Robyn said when Freya released her. ‘Seriously, fucking Audi Eddie? Never again will I let you choose a blind date for me.’

  ‘He’s not bad-looking, is he?’

  ‘Well, no, and a good thing too given his complete absence of anything resembling a decent personality.’ Robyn locked the front door and the three of them started walking towards the hall. ‘I thought you said he had my sense of humour.’

  ‘Didn’t he?’ Eliot asked.

  ‘He didn’t have a sense of humour, El. At least, not unless you count guffawing his head off every time he mentioned a cocktail called Sit on my Face.’

  ‘At work we just assumed he was really dry,’ Freya said.

  ‘Nope, he’s an arrogant, charmless arse. What did he say about me then?’

  ‘He asked what the hell I thought I was playing at, setting him up with a married woman and her huge kinky hubby. From which I gathered you’d texted Ash to get you out of it with Threesome Husband. I thought you two weren’t talking.’

  Robyn shrugged. ‘We are a bit now. I didn’t text him though, he just happened to spot me and bailed me out – hence why we’re talking again. Plus he earned himself Brownie points by volunteering to model for us tonight.’

  ‘You’re friends again then?’

  ‘No, but I’ve declared a truce. If he can manage not to screw up again, I might even go as far as not disliking him.’

  ‘But not actually liking him.’

  ‘No, that’ll take a bit longer.’

  Freya put an arm around her. ‘Anyway, Eddie wasn’t what the hug was in aid of. We heard the news, sweetie. About your aunty.’

  ‘Oh,’ Robyn said, looking down at her feet. ‘I didn’t know she’d started telling people.’

  Eliot nodded. ‘It’s all over the village. I’m sorry, Rob, we know how much she means to you. Here if you need us, eh?’

  ‘Thanks, you guys.’ She summoned a smile. ‘Anyway, let’s not talk about that. I don’t want to be bawling my eyes out by the time we get to the meeting. How was Ben, Frey? Worth a second diddling?’

  ‘Very much so,’ Freya said, just a hint of pinkness in her usually unabashable cheeks. ‘He was sweet actually. Great in bed too.’

  ‘Your perfect man.’

  ‘We’ll see. Still, I’ve got a good feeling about him.’

>   ‘Hmm. His friendship with Eddie’s a bit of a black mark,’ Robyn said. ‘I’m glad you found a good one though.’

  ‘Oh yeah, that reminds me. What was all that on the phone about you having done something stupid?’

  Robyn glanced over her shoulder to check no one was behind them. ‘I ballsed up royally a couple of weeks ago, guys. And I mean royally royally. It was the day I found out Fliss was ill.’

  ‘What happened?’ Eliot asked.

  ‘I was upset, naturally, but Fliss had asked me to keep quiet about it until she’d had a chance to tell people herself. So the only person who knew apart from her and the Brig, the only person I could talk to, was… her doctor.’

  ‘Will?’

  She nodded. ‘He came over to my place and offered me a shoulder to cry on.’

  Freya shook her head. ‘Jesus, I see where this is going. You didn’t sleep with Will?’

  ‘God, no, don’t be daft. He’d never take advantage when I was upset. Anyway, you really think he’d go behind his brother’s back?’

  ‘No, I guess not,’ Freya said. ‘He is a bit sort of… upstanding. So what happened then?’

  Robyn flushed. ‘I kissed him. I’d had too much wine and emotionally I was all over the place, and he was being so sweet, I couldn’t help it. And now… now he’s avoiding me.’

  ‘Do you fancy him then?’ Eliot said.

  ‘Well, no. I can’t, can I? He’s Will.’

  ‘You fancy Ash.’

  ‘Fancied. Past tense.’ She shook her head. ‘Can we all please remember the past tense?’

  ‘Yeah, but physically Ash must’ve done it for you. So it follows Will must as well, right? What with the whole identical thing.’

  ‘I have been having… thoughts,’ Robyn admitted, rubbing her eyes. ‘I keep trying to drown them out, but just when I think I’m getting over it, up they pop again.’

  ‘Thoughts about Will?’

  ‘Yes.’ She sighed. ‘I shouldn’t have let my guard down. No good could come of letting myself think about Will like that; he’s complete forbidden fruit.’